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More May 26th

Brent Musburger is 75.

Stevie Nicks is 66 today.

Finally, the platinum edition of Fleetwood Mac came together in 1975 with the recruitment of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The San Francisco duo had previously cut an album together as Buckingham-Nicks. Drummer Fleetwood heard a tape of theirs at a studio he was auditioning, and the pair were drafted into the group without so much as a formal audition. This lineup proved far and away to be Fleetwood Mac’s most durable and successful. In addition to the most solid rhythm section in rock, this classic lineup contained strong vocalists and songwriters in Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie. Male and female points of view were offered with unusual candor on the watershed albums Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977).

John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison 107 years ago today. (His middle name was later changed to Mitchell so his parents could name their next son Robert.)

In more than 200 films made over 50 years, John Wayne saddled up to become the greatest figure of one of America’s greatest native art forms, the western.

The movies he starred in rode the range from out-of-the-money sagebrush quickies to such classics as “Stagecoach” and “Red River.” He won an Oscar as best actor for another western, “True Grit,” in 1969. Yet some of the best films he made told stories far from the wilds of the West, such as “The Quiet Man” and “The Long Voyage Home.”

In the last decades of his career, Mr. Wayne became something of an American folk figure, hero to some, villain to others, for his outspoken views. He was politically a conservative and, although he scorned politics as a way of life for himself, he enthusiastically supported Richard M. Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Spiro T. Agnew, Ronald Reagan and others who, he felt, fought for his concept of Americanism and anti- Communism.

From a hot air balloon on a sunny late-June morning in 1863, Roebling was the first to spy Robert E. Lee’s army heading toward Gettysburg. During the ensuing battle, when General Warren ordered that Little Round Top be reinforced, Roebling helped place the first cannon, which effectively defended the site and directly contributed to the subsequent Union victory. He was awarded three brevets for gallant conduct and ended his military career as a Colonel.

Roebling’s wife Emily was the younger sister of General Gouverneur K. Warren, hero of Gettysburg. Roebling served on Warren’s staff.

James Arness — Marshall Dillon — was born May 26, 1923. He died in 2011.

The first woman in space, Sally K. Ride, was born on May 26, 1951. She died in 2012.